“Can it be?” said he.  “What, already?  Ask her if she will be so good as to make me a visit.  If she will not, I will rise and attend her.”

Mrs. Jewkes came to tell me, and I went with her.  As soon as he saw me, he said: 

“Oh, my Pamela, you have made me quite well!”

How kind a dispensation is sickness sometimes!  He was quite easy and pleased with me.

The next day my master was so much better that he would take a turn after breakfast in the chariot, handing me in before all the servants, as if I had been a lady.  At first setting out, he kissed me a little too often, that he did; but he was exceedingly kind to me in his words as well.

At last, he said: 

“My sister, Lady Davers, threatens to renounce me, and I shall incur the censures of the world if I act up to my present intentions.  For it will be said by everyone that Mr. B. has been drawn in by the eye, to marry his mother’s waiting maid.  Not knowing, perhaps, that to her mind, to her virtue, as well as to the beauties of her person, she owes her well-deserved conquest; and that there is not a lady in the kingdom who will better support the condition to which she will be raised if I should marry her.”  And added he, putting his arm round me:  “I pity my dear girl, too, for her part in this censure, for here she will have to combat the pride and slights of the neighbouring gentry all around us.  Lady Davers and the other ladies will not visit you; and you will, with a merit superior to them all, be treated as if unworthy their notice.  Should I now marry my Pamela, how will my girl relish all this?  Will not these be cutting things to my fair one?”

“Oh, sir,” said I, “your poor servant has a much greater difficulty than this to overcome.”

“What is that?” said he a little impatiently.  “I will not forgive your doubts now.”

“No, sir,” said I, “I cannot doubt; but it is, how I shall support, how I shall deserve, your goodness to me!”

“Dear girl!” said he, and press’d me to his bosom.  “I was afraid you would again have given me reason to think you had doubts of my honour, and this at a time when I was pouring out my whole soul to you, I could not so easily have forgiven.”

“But, good sir,” said I, “my greatest concern will be for the rude jests you will have yourself to encounter for thus stooping beneath yourself.  For as to me I shall have the pride to place more than half the ill will of the ladies to their envying my happiness.”

“You are very good, my dearest girl,” said he.  “But how will you bestow your time, when you will have no visits to receive or pay?  No parties of pleasure to join in?  No card-tables to employ your winter evenings?”

“In the first place, sir, if you will give me leave, I will myself look into all such parts of the family management as may befit the mistress of it to inspect.  Then I will assist your housekeeper, as I used to do, in the making of jellies, sweetmeats, marmalades, cordials; and to pot and candy and preserve, for the use of the family; and to make myself all the fine linen of it.  Then, sir, if you will indulge me with your company, I will take an airing in your chariot now and then; and I have no doubt of so behaving as to engage you frequently to fill up some part of my time in your instructive conversation.”